Gilboy’s Quest

by Sam Ivey

Chapter V: Capsized
part 3 of 4

That afternoon he was able to ship the foremast, laboring the 17-foot spar upright, sliding some three feet of it into its deck opening and down onto its step on the keel. As for the running rigging, it was still in place on the mast: the foresail’s throat and peak halyards; the storm trysail halyard and the jib halyard — all were still rove in their blocks.

The standing rigging, however, would require considerable splicing, it having been pretty well cut up in the darkness last night. It took some real marlinespike seamanship and some extra time, but he cared for every matter. And after rapping the mast shims into place at the deck, he tensioned the shrouds and headstay as best he could.

It was inescapable that the memory of his discussion with George Kneass — about the wisdom of the schooner rig — should come most naturally to his mind. For here he was now, having lost one of his masts; and had he been sailing a runabout rig, it could just as easily have been his only mast. He reflected as well on the relative ease of its repair. And he was extremely grateful that he did not have to struggle with a huge mainsail, and with re-stepping an even larger mast.

By now the afternoon was nearly spent; the sun had long since passed its zenith. Yet he had no inclination to spend another night adrift with repairs yet to be done. All he still needed was to fashion a rudder and he could get underway. So he surveyed the remains of what had been the rudder; no more than a shambles of splintered wood, of which nothing was usable. And he had no spare lumber. Additionally, the pintles — the two vertical pins that attach the rudder to the boat and that allow it to swing — had gone to the bottom of the sea. And now he was wondering: was there possibly some part of the boat that could be sacrificed? Maybe...

The oars! Of course, the oars! Why had he not thought of them earlier? What a natural thing! After all, for hundreds of years boats had been steered by an oar, the Chinese having introduced the center-mounted rudder to Europe by means of the Arabs. And he had two of them; he had seen them, there in the forward compartment, when he was sorting through the supplies, Two oars which had fortunately not drifted away as had the main mast. Perhaps one of them might answer as a rudder.

He pulled them up on to the deck, wet and decidedly moldy as was everything else in that compartment. Two solid ash oars. Regrettably however, as he now considered them, he felt them to be too short. Being only 12 feet long, they were of a length that would allow for precious little leverage. Now he cast about for another substitute — there must be something — and his eyes fell upon a spare boom, still lashed to the deck. Eleven feet it was, and designed to be cut to meet some emergency of whatever nature. But it would not be cut now, and he lashed it to the oar, securing the whole to the starboard gunnel. Now he had a rudder; now he could steer.

By now the western sky had been reduced to a muddy crimson, the sun having just sunk below the horizon as he hauled the drogue aboard. He coiled the drogue’s tether and secured the rig along the starboard side before hoisting the foresail, letting the boom swing free to leeward. Red sky at night, he thought, and am I glad to see you! Then up went the jib, flapping noisily until he trimmed it to the southeast wind. Pacific then began to gather way, as he sheeted in the foresail. And as she did, he felt an exhilarating rush of euphoria.

Notwithstanding the serious misfortune of capsize, along with its accompanying losses, he was in surprisingly good spirits. The boat had not sunk; he had not drowned; and he still had what appeared to be sufficient food and water to see him to his destination. True, the patched-together rudder and tiller required some extra leverage, and being lashed to the starboard gunnel it was tiresome to use. Also, Pacific was now somewhat awkward to handle — no longer having a balanced sail plan; and any real capacity for going to windward had gone with the mainsail. But she was sailing! Pacific was sailing, and he was moving westward. The quest was still alive.

It was his plan to sail as long as possible tonight, and he chose a particularly bright star, high in the western sky, as a signpost. He did not know the name of the star, and it was of no significance. He knew only that it was to the west, and he would maintain a constant bearing on that star until it descended beyond a point of usefulness. After that he would choose another and follow it in the same way, just as Polynesian voyagers in these very waters had done for centuries, long before Oriental seamen — again the Chinese — had conceived of the compass.

Fatigue, however, would not permit; the overwhelming exhaustion, against which adrenaline had waged a noble warfare throughout the past nearly 24 hours, would not be conquered. Sleep was upon him with all the insistence of death, save the dying itself. And before much over an hour had passed, he jibed the boat around and hove-to. Then, with the jib backwinded and the foresail sheeted tight, he shoved the drogue over the side and lashed the tiller to leeward.

But tired as he was, he found sleep evading him, and he sat for some time, with his head through the cockpit opening, just thinking. He understood the cause of his insomnia: Pacific lay unusually restless. The battered little vessel was shifting constantly from one side to the other, and it was apparent that the mainsail’s absence was being felt. The boat simply would not lie to the hard-sheeted foresail as it had to the main; there was not enough balance aft to compensate for the pressure on the jib.

And then an idea occurred to him. Literally at his feet — bunched at the forward end of the aft compartment — was the storm trysail. From somewhere he mustered the energy, and pulled the second oar up from below. Then he hauled out the sail, a small triangular piece of canvas, and made several little holes along its foot. Then using small pieces of line, he attached the sail to the oar; it would now to be something between a mast and a boom. Then shoving the handle end of the oar into the deck opening, the one normally occupied by the main mast, he secured it with a piece of line under the deck.

Forward on the foremast hung the trysail halyard, and he now brought it aft to where he attached it to the sail’s head. Then, his labor completed, he haul up his curious-looking rig and found that he had an acceptable lateen-style mainsail. Only one thing was lacking, and from the forward compartment he took a piece of line. Attaching it to the blade end of the oar, it would serve as a sheet for his new sail. With his jury-rig now in place, and with the new sail sheeted in hard, he lowered the foresail. Pacific now lay quietly hove-to. Not only had he solved the problem of heaving-to, he had also increased the overall sail area and had improved the boat’s speed to a small degree. Then he slept.

He thought he would have slept the clock around, but he was awake at sunrise on Friday morning, December 15th, and he felt he was near to famished. Indeed, it may have been hunger that woke him. He had not had warm food since two days ago — since before the capsize — and he was eager for such a meal.

Easing himself up through the cockpit and standing fully erect on deck, he stretched and yawned. Weary muscles, unwilling to move after hours of motionless sleep, yielded reluctantly; and he worked his shoulders and twisted his head about — arms extended, fingers opening and closing — before he finally knelt and brought the drogue aboard. Then he put the boat before the wind, a fine steady trade blowing fresh from the southeast, before lashing the tiller in place and firing the kerosene oil stove to prepare some hot roast beef.

He started to eat and then stopped. He sat looking at the food and thought: What a blessing; what a grand gift this is! And he was alive. “Oh, thank you, God!” he said out loud; and at that moment a mixture of thoughts — all of a connection — pervaded his mind simultaneously. He had food, and he could have just as easily been left with none; had the cover on the forward hatch come off, everything would have spilled. The boat had been righted; that too was something that might have proved impossible, and indeed it nearly did. He had water, he had fuel, and he was alive! He bowed his head in prayer; and for several minutes, waves of gratitude, not altogether expressible in human speech, consumed him.

Then he ate; he ate fully a half-pound of meat, it being his allowance for the entire day. Deliberately taking small mouthfuls, he savored each one for a long time. And he treated himself to a piece of bread as well. Some hot black coffee served to wash it all down, and afterwards he felt greatly refreshed.

And the sun was shining today, shining clean and bright on the brilliant blue of the sea, and he meant to follow it in its arc all across the heavens. It would be his compass until tonight, when he would again rely on the stars.

Today would be a fine day for drying, too. The wind was light, causing the boat to heel only a little, and even books laid on the deck were in small danger of blowing away. Leaving the tiller lashed to hold course, he brought it all up: books, clothing, tools; everything he had room for. On deck or aloft, he spread it all out. Indeed, the little boat looked not unlike the proverbial Gypsy’s wagon. Like a flea market was the deck, while the few shrouds that were left were festooned with all the garments they would bear; a veritable rag fair.

Throughout the forenoon he sat there on deck, his back against the mast. And he sat looking aft rather than forward, watching the fluttering clothing that was like so many signal flags, and looking back at the enormous distance he had covered, reflecting on his great good fortune over those thousands of miles. There would have been many, doubtlessly, that would have been bitter, despondent, perhaps even suicidal in the wake of what had happened in just the last few hours. But he was filled with a joy that was virtually without containment. Had there been opportunity, he would have been dancing.

What a thrill it was for him to just look around, to watch the flashes of sunlight blazing from off myriads of myriads of wavelets; to breathe an air that seemed to contain the very essence of life; to be intoxicated with the pale, clear blue of the sky; to let his mind drift as did the clouds, lazily sliding to the northeast on this particular forenoon. Perhaps never before had he been so purely sated with the simple, unadorned pleasure — the absolute rapture of being alive.

In the dark hours of Wednesday night, as he had clung to the sides of his little upturned craft, wrapped in what was potentially a liquid shroud, he had peered as close as ever he should care, into the very face of death. And now life was all the more splendid for having seen that dread countenance. He was warm; he had eaten; Pacific was riding easily; and in this placid state he dozed.

He awoke around 3:00 p.m., not at all surprised that he had fallen asleep, and he stood. He felt one of the shirts that was tied to the port shrouds and that was snapping in the wind. Finding it to be dry, he subsequently discovered that all the rest of the clothing was equally so. He therefore folded everything after a fashion and put it all below.

The books went below deck, too. Without a single exception, they were still quite damp — it being literally impossible to get air between all the pages in such a short time — but they were greatly improved since the morning, and they could be aired again later.

By 5:00 he was feeling some hunger, and he was tempted to take some food. But realizing that his routine of earlier weeks was no longer possible; that even a desirable cup of coffee was out of the question — fuel for the stove being so limited — he determined that he would not eat until tomorrow.

It was in the midst of this resolution that he felt something bump sharply against the boat. Looking over the side, he saw another swordfish, the third that had visited him. He had noticed it earlier as it had followed him for some while, but had given it little attention. The first two had fallen far short of measuring up to their dastardly reputations, and had proven to be no more than pesky curiosities. To this one, too, he credited nothing more.

But then suddenly there was a solid jolt, followed by a jerking of the boat; and after which he watched the fish swim off. But unlike its previous cousins, it had literally attacked the boat. He had been among whales, among sharks, and even other swordfish, but this was the first deliberate attack on the vessel. Seamen’s tales flashed in his mind. Had it penetrated the hull? Surely it had not.

It took possibly five minutes, certainly no more than ten, before he could hear the sounds: cans of food were rattling and bumping about up forward. More than that, he could feel the sluggishness of the boat. He had been hulled!

Proceed to part 4...